Physical Fitness The Government's three-year plan to promote physical fitness,
which was published last week, contained no surprises ; but, welcome though it is, it will disappoint those who had hoped for more recognition of the close connexion between fitness and nutrition. The plan is estimated to cost £2,00o,000 in the first three years and £150,000 a year thereafter. The proposals fall into three main groups : the provision of playing fields, gymnasia, baths, camping sites, and club centres : the establishment of a National Training College, which will provide the necessary supply of physical instruc- tors ; and the setting up of National Advisory Councils and Grants Committees through which the scheme will be largely administered. It is possible that it would have been wiser to give the Ministry of Health, rather than the Board 'of Education, control of the plan, which is meant more for adults than for school children ; it might then have been easier later to relate it to a national nutrition policy, a point on which practically every speaker in the debate in the House of Commons on Monday laid stress. Mr. Oliver Stanley, President of the Board of Education, recognised, in his broadcast speech, that the plan was an instrument of propaganda as much as of direct physical training, and he gave assurances that the Government was intent on the problem of nutrition.
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